“I can cook anything, different types of dishes…” – Olu Jacobs talks family and kitchen in new interview

You and your wife are usually tagged Nollywood’s most celebrated couple. How did you meet?

I was having a meeting at the National
Theatre and the door opened a young lady came in. I looked at her. I
have never met her before in my life and I said to the people in the
room ‘ladies and gentlemen, this is the lady I am going to marry‘. Everybody laughed. She looked at me up and down, hissed and left. Today, she is my wife and that was 27years ago.

With the rate at which celebrity marriages are crashing, how have you been able to keep it together?

It is God. There are other forces
outside that you need to take cognizance of but when you do, you have to
make sure that they don’t take control over your life. You are now
thinking for two. No decision you take should be for yourself alone.
It’s for two and it must remain for two. You have to always remember
that. If my wife goes out, and she finds out that she would not be able
to make it back at the time she initially thought she would, she picks
up the phone and calls me to tell me. Fine! You are thinking for two,
she knows where I am, I know where she is. We still do this till
tomorrow. Communicating like that helps a lot, once we are talking, you
have an idea of where I am and I have an idea of where you are. I am not
saying that it should be every minute calls. Sometimes just being
together in a room not necessarily saying anything is also important.

So who cooks for you when she is not around?

I am very familiar with the kitchen. Sometimes, I say, ‘okay everybody move, I want to do the cooking today’. I was a bachelor for a long time and I made sure that no woman would come and do ‘iyanga’
for me. I can cook anything; fish, chicken, different types of dishes, I
can cook them. I feel at home in the kitchen so if she is there, I can
come and join her though sometimes she drives me away.

How do you resolve your quarrels when you have one?

You learn not to pick on anything your
partner says. It interferes with the relationship. If something happens
and you want to discuss it, discuss it till the two of you resolve it.
Why won’t we argue? I have a mind, she has a mind so why shouldn’t we
argue. 

We must argue but as we do so, we must finish up that argument so
we can start another one. We must quarrel, it is resolving it that is
the task. 

Anybody can fight but how many can sit down and resolve it?
You must finish one fight before another and you cannot jump because if
you jump it will pull you back. We thank God and pray to him to continue
to guide us and give us the wisdom to relate properly, and to be as
fair and honest as possible. Apart from that, we just take it as it
comes.

Since you got married, your wife has maintained her maiden name. Why has she not adopted your own name?

She is her own individual. When I met her, she was an actress known as Joke Silva
so why should marrying me now deny her and her audience her name. She
is Miss Joke Silva who is Mrs. Joke Jacobs. It is as simple as that.
People now begin to say what they like. They have even written that we
are separated and all sort of stuffs. When she is working, she is Joke
Silva but she is Mrs. Joke Jacobs at home.

What are those things you really love about her and the things you don’t really like about her?

Sometimes, she insists on things. Even
when we have resolved it, she will still bring it back. She thinks more
of others. She will think of you and remind you of things that need to
be reminded of. She is always happy to help anybody. For her it’s not an
effort. She cares a lot and of course, we are all boys in the house so
she mothers all of us. That’s the way, we handle it, so whatever we need
to do, we discuss it.

You are both very busy people, how do you find time for your children?

They are grown-ups now but we are still
together. When we are together, we ask the children what they think of
this or that. You don’t leave them out of it, they have come into the
circle and they did not choose to come, we asked them to come so we must
make the time to make sure that we look after them, guide them and be
with them. Sometimes, that is more important than saying anything, just
being with them gives them that extra calmness. You know in our job, we
do a lot of travelling, but if I don’t have anything to do outside, what
am I looking for? I have the phone, if I have to book an appointment I
do so. If I have to go out I go out and if I don’t have to go out, I
don’t go out and I am quite happy.

Aside acting, what do derive happiness in doing?

It is still the same thing, I love
anything to do with the business of acting, whether performing,
producing, directing. Singing is another area that I like. I used to
sing when I was much younger but I haven’t done that for a while. It was
one of the things that helped me in the manipulation of words, when you
can sing, you find it easier to speak and manipulate words.

A few months ago, there was a rumour of your passing away. How did you feel when you heard the rumour?

I am here, you can testify to that.
I don’t know. Like I said, we are restless, we panic too much, we don’t
get full information before we jump the gun. Maybe they just mentioned
Olu, the next person will now add Jacobs to it and it spreads like that.
Some people called me to verify and when they saw I was alright, they
say we will talk later and drop the phone. Now, they will help debunk
the rumour but that information will not move as fast as the one that
talked of death.